


And It Was Only Just Beginning

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Harry Potter Next Generation, Post-War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2018-10-26 14:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10788942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Rose and Scorpius deal with things. Knee-deep in the Black Lake. During a thunderstorm. At midnight. This is chaos that neither of them have even considered possible.MT for language (mostly).





	And It Was Only Just Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Written while listening to 'O Children' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on repeat. Thanks to ~whoever might beta this~.

Standing on the very edge, metal meeting rubber soles of shiny black shoes. Rose Weasley liked to stand on the brink and risk the possibility of falling, teetering on the very limit of sanity, of argument, of life itself.  The shoes reflected back smoke curling from the snout of the metal dragon, the catapult ready to hurl her into a hereafter she yearned to join. After several sloppy goodbyes, she was on the train, relieved to be free of the cloisters of childhood. The glass door slid open, and she met his gray eyes reflected in the glittering window as he asked her, “Do you mind? Everywhere else is full.”

 

The Sorting Hat cracked its brim and spewed some silly song, proclaiming the destinies of each name on the crinkled parchment. “Malfoy, Scorpius.” Slytherin _. Damn._ “Weasley, Rose.” Gryffindor, obviously. She found a place at the dark wooden table and met James and Albus’s grins with a smile. Of course, Rose told herself she didn’t mind that Scorpius was doomed to be her enemy. She supposed that she would just try very hard to forget the five hours of lively argument and joking rivalry on the Hogwarts Express. 

 

Finish the first day. Finish the first week. Finish the first month. Scorpius and Rose were now well-established rivals, and formed an enigmatic and volatile friendship. Neither knew why or how, but their friendship seemed to survive every blow it was dealt. Despite their differences, despite their rows and scuffles and haughty silences, they did truly depend on each other and became best mates in a matter of months. Scorpius was the epitome of Slytherin: cunning, cocky, and brilliantly clever, managing to be both haughty and charming the same time. Rose exuded Gryffindor, with her air of rebellion and mischief, seeking fights and friendship in the most unlikely of places. Scorpius and Rose were probably the two people most unlikely to be best mates. Oh well.

 

Rose’s Hogwarts was Drooble’s Best Blowing gum chewed on the chilly walk to Hogsmeade, hallways patrolled with a gleaming prefects badge pinned to her chest, raucous cheers bursting eardrums in the Quidditch stadium. She fought and flirted and kissed and cried, all in the company of Scorpius, her contrary to all reasonable expectations but nonetheless closest friend. Their friendship was explosive, and they often found themselves duelling on the grounds or screaming at each other in empty hallways, feuding and fuming. But that didn’t matter, because he was still Rose’s best mate, no matter what happened; he had promised. 

 

The first five years of Rose’s magical education were filled with messy endings and new beginnings, reckless ideas and stupid relationships, tears and yells and all those lovely teenager things. But Rose and Scorpius were a team. No matter how many boys (and girls too, actually, but only under the influence of copious amounts of illegal Firewhiskey) Rose snogged, how many girls Scorpius felt up, how many hexes hit their mark or how many insults were shouted, nothing could fully shatter their friendship. 

 

Rose rather liked him more than she should, strictly speaking exclusively as a best mate with no connotation of anything else ever. That’s not to say that she didn’t wish there wish there was some sort of connotation. Her hope pushed up through the September soil of her 6th year and she realised that she’d pretty much been in love with him for the past three years. Now, each fight between cut her more deeply, each contemptuous glare and mockery imprinted in her memory. Because now the very fact the he didn’t love her back hurt enough to…wait, no. She did not just admit that, and no, she had not been in love with him for that past three years. And anyway, she did truly love her boyfriend, Will Stoke, regardless of Scorpius. Not that he would affect anything anyways. Because she was definitely _not_ in love with him.

 

It was just that he made her limbs tingle and her cheeks blush. And whenever he grinned at her or grabbed her arm or hand or even just leaned up against her, her blood ran marathons through her veins, pulse racing. And each time they fought and yelled and stormed away in utter chaos, she broke a little more. His proud and mocking voice, a voice that had the capacity to be incredibly compassionate, made her brain hum and blur, or maybe it was his smell that made everything shift out of focus. His boy smell of cologne and fabric softener and ink. It was just that he was…NO. Not going there. Best mate. That’s it. No. She loved Will Stoke, and thinking about it, she realised it was true. Yes, it was different than how she felt about Scorpius, _who she wasn’t in love with he was just her best mate so let it go goddamnit,_ but it was real love. He was hers and she was his, and she couldn’t really imagine loving someone else, so familiar and strong her relationship with Will was.

            

And now here they stand, Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy, sixth years, on the night of November 7th, having a shouting match knee deep in the Black Lake.

“Why the _fuck_ are in the fucking _lake_?! At _midnight_?! During an effing _lightning storm_?! Jesus, Rose!” Scorpius bellowed over the howling of a magnificently colossal storm, looking down at her from his superior height of 6 feet and three-quarters of an inch. He was still in his school robes, for some unknown reason. “I might ask you the same question,” Rose nearly screamed back over the jumbled chaos of the storm, feeling deaf and blind and mildly contemplating drowning herself. She was wearing a light blue t-shirt that had belonged to Scorpius at some point, a pair of pyjama shorts, and was totally aware that Scorpius thought she was a maniac. Not like that was new or anything.

 

“I came out here to tell you to get out of the goddamned lake because it’s clear you’re upset! So can we _please_ go inside to talk about this considering we’re out here _in the middle of a thunderstorm_!” Scorpius tried to grab her arm and pull her in the general direction of the school, but she twisted away. Lighting split apart the sky, the storm tugging at the fabric of reality.

 

“Oh, I hadn’t noticed!”, and with that Rose turned and struggled onto the sand, followed by Scorpius. They ran across the grounds and to the arched walkway that surrounded one of the courtyards. She sat down resolutely on the grey flagstones with her back against the cold wall, crossed her legs, and proceeded to glare at Scorpius with no apparent intention of stopping. The look in her eyes clearly said a nonverbal “fuck you”. The moon bathed the sheltered hall with a bluish half-light as the storm raged a mere few feet away. 

 

“Explain,” he commanded. Rose rolled her eyes at his demand, as she often did when he behaved so empirically. She wasn’t really annoyed, just hurt by all the turmoil the day had contained. But nonetheless she sought to reflect the persona of a hardened sardonic to protect herself.

 

 Rose thought back to the raw pain of the day, the muddle of anger and pity and fear she clambered through until lessons ended. In truth, she had spent the evening catatonic, the curtains twitched shut around her four poster as she stared at the seams. For the first time in a long while, she let little salty drops leak out of her eyes, carving a glistening trail down her cheeks. She reached under her pillow for Scorpius’s shirt, the one she’d ended up with after a luggage collision at King’s Cross, and buried her face in the comforting expanse. She’d really fucked everything up today: with Scorpius, with Will, with her Arithmancy exam. Nothing had escaped the discord of her insanity unscathed. As she watched the light dim, she muddled her way into pyjamas, pulling the shirt over her head. She’d clambered her way morosely up to the tower after receiving a thoroughly emotional pummelling. Everything had fallen to shit, like it always fucking did, and her inner turmoil mirrored the magnificent storm attacking the Earth right outside her window. She was numb and violent, listening to the clocks measure out time in teaspoons until the midnight chime. 

 

Her bare feet padded soundless over the castle’s stony floors. She knew the night-time Hogwarts well, having learned its twists and turns on her explorations of the castle and grounds with Scorpius. Sliding across sopping grass, slipping through mud and sand, blundering through a surreal reality. She was on the shore of the Black Lake, and its waters seemed to roil in agony. Consumed by regret and sick with her own idiocy, she sank beneath the surface of the icy expanse. The frigid water electrified each nerve coating her limbs, she was a stinging, freezing star, floating and falling under the stormy torrents. She had stung with cold, the numbing water had drowned every other memory away.

 

Rose was reluctant, she wasn’t one to confess. “Come on,” Scorpius pleaded, “just tell me, Rose. I’m your best mate. You’re obligated.”

 

“I don’t know if that title is applicable any more, especially since this morning when you called me, and I _quote_ , ‘an aggravatingly argumentative know-it-all’, and then went off to snog whoever you’re dating now.”

 

“I apologise sincerely,” he said sarcastically, “but if I recall correctly, you were the one who tried to hex me first-”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Also, I don’t date. Come on, Rose, please tell me why you were carrying out a reckless death wish in the middle of a storm. I’m your best mate and you know that isn’t going to change, no matter how many times we fight.”

 

“Fine, if you must know, I saw Will hooking up with...” she broke off and pretended very hard that she wasn’t holding back sobs, pulling her knees to her chest, “…hooking up with Vane. You know, that pretty Ravenclaw one with the hair,” she sobbed again, a real one, with real tears this time, “and he wasn’t even hiding, they were just tonguing, right there, next to the greenhouses and _he’s just such a fucking dick_! I can’t believe I trusted someone again, it’s the same thing every goddamned time and I don’t …I don’t fucking want to do it anymore.” She was crying now, and she hated it. She was out of control. Fuck.

 

“I am going to fucking kill him,” Scorpius murmured as he slid down from where he was perched on top of the low railing and sat down beside her. She tilted her head back against the hard stone. He continued softly, “I’m sorry, Rosie. I…he doesn’t deserve you. I hate watching people do this to you.” Scorpius often surprised Rose with his seemingly uncharacteristic ability to be incredibly kind, especially recalling all the cruelty he’d verbalised, and all the shit she’d screamed back. “But why, why do you always have to very nearly kill yourself every time you’re upset? Can’t you stop being so god damn self-destructive? It scares me sometimes.”

 

She turned her head to face him, eyes locking, his grey and hers green. Then she relaxed and leaned against him, arms touching and her head on his shoulder. “I just…it makes me feel better. It makes me forget…stuff.” She always made reckless decisions when she had no options left. She lashed out and then suffered through the meltdown her desperate actions caused. To be honest, it felt like the safe thing to do. 

 

She looked down, and saw goosebumps speckle her pale skin. She liked the icy chill that settled in her bones. It was comforting. “Wait, how did you even know I was out there?”

 

“Detention with McGonagall. I…um…I got kind of…irritated in Transfiguration and I…er…I made my rabbit breathe fire.” Rose giggled through her sobs at his confession, despite her anger and sadness and the complete social chaos of her situation, “and I saw you through the window as I was leaving and figured I better find out why you were swimming in the fucking lake in the middle of a Thursday night. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t my fault. And…look, I’m sorry Rose, I was a git. ” She noticed his tie was dripping onto the floor with a sort of melancholy rhythm, and realised that he too was sopping, and probably didn’t like it. “It’s okay, I was too. And I’m sorry about the whole…lake…thing.”

 

“Stoke shouldn’t have done that. Cheated on you. I’ll hex his bollocks off if you want. I’m going to let this happen anymore; I’m the only one allowed to insult you.” She expected Scorpius to grin jokingly, but then realised he was probably serious. She felt a bit warmer knowing that he cared about her, even if her boyfriend of five months cheated on her like everyone else she’d ever dated.

“After I caught him and Vane, we had a row. He got all defensive and said I didn’t really care about him. Which is untrue, obviously, and I tried to tell him that. But then he got to real point, and said that I was too mental to handle, and he didn’t care if I was a genius, I was still crazy and he didn’t want to deal with me anymore and so we’re over.” Rose was still sort of crying, tears oozing from her wide eyes, try as she might to hold them back. Scorpius told her, “I quite like your complete disregard for normalcy, actually. It makes you vastly more interesting. I can’t imagine how dull my life would be without you to row with. Where would my reflexes be if I didn’t have to dodge your spells every time I act like an imbecile?” Rose almost smiled at that. Scorpius grasped her hand and squeezed it tightly.

“Will also thinks I’m secretly in love with you,” Rose stated matter-of-factly, or so she hoped. As she rested her head on Scorpius’s shoulder, she took a moment to consider the absurdity of her situation. She was holding hands with her best mate after nearly drowning in the lake because her boyfriend accused her of being in love with him, which she was. Okay, bad idea to consider absurdity, not doing that again.

“And are you secretly in love with me?” Scorpius asked her nonchalantly.

“What? Why do you ask?” Rose tried to keep the rising panic out of her voice. No, not happening, Scorpius did _not_ just ask her if she was in love with him. 

“Fuck, Rose. Because I want to know if you are so I can figure out whether or not to kiss you right now, because it looks like you need it and I’ve wanted to for a pretty long time.” Rose said nothing, her mind blank after his impossible confession. He was still watching the rain fall and splatter into the courtyard. Rose was still leaning against him and she wasn’t really sure this discussion was happening, especially not with this blandly conversational tone. And then Rose decided to give up and stop hiding behind boyfriends and broken spirits. In a split second, Rose let go of each secret and every fear of rejection she kept caged in the neurons of her brain. “Yes,” she answered, voice shaking with all the raw chaotic emotion rising with her heartbeat, “yes, I am secretly in love with you. And I would like very much for you to kiss me right now.”

And he did. Lips touched, a mix of mint and vanilla and Rose was melting into Scorpius. It didn’t matter that Will Stoke was a dick, or that anyone she’d ever snogged had dumped her for being a mental basket-case. Who fucking cared because she was kissing Scorpius and rain was drowning the earth, stealing her tears. 

His hands wrapped around her waist, warmth penetrating the damp fabric of her shirt. His shirt. It was a mess of hands and warmth and ice. Rose’s tongue glided across Scorpius’s lower lip and then slid inside his mouth. Their tongues circled and darted and pulsed with the movements of their lips; the kiss held both the innocence and experience each possessed. It was over. And it was only just beginning.

Rose looked up at him and smiled, biting her lip. He grinned back, and she buried her face in his wiry, Quidditchy chest, a small smile quirking up the edges of her mouth.

“So, Rose, how long have you been secretly in love with me for?”

She was unspeakably relieved that he couldn’t see her blush. “About three years.” Her muffled reply drew another smile to Scorpius’s lips.

“You’ll be glad to know that it’s reciprocated.”

“I figured,” she mumbled, inhaling his smell that she definitely did not ever have dreams about. She was tingling and buzzing, scared of the disaster their kiss might cause.

“Oh, good. Just don’t snog anyone else, okay? Not even any girls,” he said, “Unless I get to watch,” he added as an afterthought.

Rose had sat up sharply at his mention of girls. She looked terrified.

“Yes, I do know about those. Calm down. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

“Shit. But I was drunk!” she protested, giggling through her tears. They were still trickling out of her emerald eyes, maybe because of Will or maybe because of Scorpius or maybe because of all the times she’d been rejected or maybe just because she was simply a teenager, that glorious and impossible feat. Scorpius reached up a pale hand to brush the litter of her sobs away, searching her face thoughtfully. “I have a question,” Rose told him, “if you were secretly in love with me, why did you go around feeling up everything with tits?”

He had his arms wrapped around her now, and she rested with her back against his chest. “Same reason as you. Because I couldn’t stand just pointlessly waiting for you to notice the obvious. I decided to just pretend that I didn’t like you, which seemed like a good idea according to my severely twisted logic, and made a commitment to become a womanizer and snog every girl in the school but you.”

Rose began to chuckle, never mind that she was leaking tears, and her laughter built upon itself to a crescendo. She laughed at the absurdity and insanity and the complete fucking stupidity of the human race. Scorpius smirked at her, nonplussed, as her nearly laughter subsided. “You really are mental, you know. In a good way. Mostly.”

She forgot to smack him round the face for this comment, mostly because she was so astonished and overwhelmed at the existence of this moment. It was okay that life tended to finish catastrophically because he was Scorpius and she was Rose and his lips were pressed to her hair.

“I love you, you know,” Rose told him, and their eyes met as Rose leaned her head back to look at him. “Yes, I do know,” he grinned down, “and I love you too. And, you know, if you…er…wanted to be my girlfriend…I’d really like that.”, A small smile played around her lips as she nodded, almost unable to believe that _Scorpius really loved her_ and _she was his girlfriend_ and then he was kissing her again, a brain-melting miasma of fluidity and sweetness, passion and mischief.

Once again, their bodies merged. His hands roamed over her body, stroking her back, circling her waist, even daring to brush across her breasts several times. She let her fingers tug and explore his lean back, running them over his shoulders, chest, and arms, gradually moving lower. The kiss deepened with every second it lasted, mouths pressing harder, tongues dancing.

“I thought you didn’t date,” she asked him archly, waggling her eyebrows, when they finally broke apart. “Well, see, this is different, because I love you, and you’re my best mate, and I can’t reap the full benefits of your insanity unless you’re my girlfriend. So you see, it’s really necessary,” he told her, snickering. This time she really did hit him, but not very hard. 

She had never felt so many things at once, all screaming inside her bursting lungs. But more than anything else, she felt alive. Not the kind of alive where your heart ticks away and your toenails grow indefinitely, but the kind of alive where you can feel the whole universe exploding inside your chest.


End file.
